It's Why They Play the Game (with Robert Gibbs)
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark. And this week, we are talking about the future of the Democratic Party. Now, we recently heard from swing voters who had watched Biden's State of the Union speech. And while they thought he knocked it out of the park, they had major reservations about him running again in 2024.

And yet, when it came to Biden versus Trump or Biden versus DeSantis, they all took Biden without blinking. Our friend Peter Baker, who was just on the pod, is out with a New York Times story this week about Joe Biden's 2024 strategy. And it boils down to three words, competent versus crazy. And it's possible that may carry the day.

But it does seem like Democrats at some point are going to need a better pitch than just, hey, we're not these lunatics. And they're going to need candidates capable of making that pitch that their party is the one best equipped to take America into the future. So what is the future of the Democratic Party?

My guest today is someone who knows a little something about candidates who can make an optimistic pitch for the future, former White House press secretary during the Obama administration and co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, Hacks on Tap, Robert Gibbs. Robert, thank you for being here. Happy to do it. Thanks for having me.

So, Robert and I both have COVID, and so we're just going to have a political COVID party here, and we're going to apologize in advance for some throat clearing, maybe a little coughing, our voices being a bit off. Just if you're listening, just we want to emphasize we're quarantined. We're not in the same place. That's true. Very different. Even though it would be okay. It'd be okay. We'd just be infecting each other at that point. I guess. Right. We're like the only people who should be hanging out together. Exactly.

I'm super excited to have you here because one of the things I want to talk about is just like a DC gossip thing that's happening. So Politico this week reported that Biden is delaying his decision and maybe waffling on not running for reelection and that other Democrats are keeping their engines warm. I buy this like zero, not at all. But do you? What do you think?

If I hadn't read sort of the headline and the lead, and I read most of the story, I would have come to the conclusion largely that he's running. He just isn't announcing in February because of the State of the Union and all the stuff now that we've seen in the last week with Ukraine. But there didn't seem like there was anything in the article that led me to think that he wasn't going to run. So I read it a couple of times. Did I miss something?

And it just seemed to be like, hey, let's have something out there in case he doesn't. But it didn't, to me, seem like there was any proof point that would have made me rethink that he's going to run. Yeah, totally. I think there's a little bit of...

There's not exactly a news vacuum, but it's like Trump made everybody feel like the news had to be like insane, like all the time. And it just feels like people are sad that there might not be a Democratic primary. And there's like just only so much coverage of Nikki Haley they can do right now. It's like they like need a dramatic story on the Dem side. But I mean, I have seen nothing, heard nothing that would lead me to believe that Joe Biden's not running.

You know, that SNL skit about all the other candidates who might run to me has been the most trenchant observational piece about the state of the Democratic non-existent primary. Because at some point you look at the 82 years old, you listen to voters talk about what a problem that is for them. And then you say, OK, let's play out the alternatives. And it's not going to be Kamala. Her approval ratings are lower than his are.

Like it seems it seems on one hand impossible to contemplate the idea of an 82 year old running for president. And yet on the other side, it feels impossible to give up the benefits of incumbency, run a messy primary when that's one of the biggest advantages you have against your opponents. So what do you think should happen here?

Giving the president time and space to make the decision that he wants to make is important. And I say that not because he's Joe Biden or any external factor other than you've got to wrap your mind around the idea that you've now got not just the White House and the country and the free world to worry about, but now you've got a campaign. So getting into it in the right frame of mind and in the right time period, I think is really important. Give everybody the space to do it.

they've got to feel comfortable about when they announce because that starts a whole different conversation.

different set of activities. I agree with you. I think there's the power of incumbency. There's the power of the kind of non-messiness of an intra-party primary. I think there's no doubt that if Democrats were to get into a primary, it would be significantly ideological, as we've seen the past couple of times. I think ideological primaries tend to be harder to put the coalition back together than when I think back to sort of Hillary and Obama,

They agreed on almost everything. Maybe obviously the one big thing was going into Iraq. But all things being equal, that was a coalition easier to put back together because it wasn't a real deep ideological rip. So, look, let's play the hypothetical album.

I think that Harris would probably go into a hypothetical primary, at least in the beginning part, not unlike she did in the 2020 race, as the leading candidate, probably. I think, and you and I have had this discussion even on Hacks, I think the Democratic bench is fairly deep. I think there's a lot of talented candidates.

future leaders in the Democratic Party now that have emerged. I'm a huge fan of Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, but I think you could add in Jared Polis in Colorado, J.B. Pritzker in Illinois, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Wes Moore in Maryland. I don't know what Stacey Abrams' future is, but it's always been fairly sky high. I think there's just a lot of different candidates that are very exciting out there.

So I'm less worried about our future than I think some people might have been. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, and I'm glad you mentioned Gretchen Whitmer because she's a name that actually comes up a lot of the other ones don't when we talk to Democrats. And let's be clear, we've spent the last couple of weeks talking to Democrats, not swing voters, not Trump voters, not any permutation of Republican voters, but just strictly Democrats. And one of the things that

I've sort of observed about Democrats over the last year or so is that while they don't sound like Republicans in the way that they sort of blame Joe Biden for everything, they kind of do sound similar to Republicans in terms of how they feel like things are going in the country. When we just ask people, and we do this sort of at the top of every focus group, how do you think things are going on in the country? It's kind of that right track, wrong track question. Let's listen to how they respond.

These times are very rough right now because inflation is killing us. So hopefully maybe it'll get better one of these days, but we all just need a break. As far as our economy, I'm scared too, because every time I go to the store, things keep going up. The oil change I'm scheduled for tomorrow went up $10. I'm like, oh, you know, it just, nobody cares if you can't pay it.

Life isn't normal anymore. And I too am so afraid for my granddaughters because they're going to grow up in a society where they have less rights than I did. It's just not right.

I didn't want Biden, but I'm glad he was in to be Trump. I feel like the good things is that he's really moved us forward with the pandemic. And honest to God, if Trump were still president, we would have had a larger death rate. It was already large, but it would have been even larger. And no one would have known what was going on. So I think that Biden handled the pandemic well.

quite well. And I'm grateful for that. I think that he is old and we need younger people with new ideas. I don't feel like he takes great stances with climate change. He's done a little bit, but not a lot. He hasn't done a lot with reproductive justice. I think he could have rallied more there. I

I feel like he hasn't let his vice president take on enough to make sure that her voice gets heard and is respected.

He hasn't done much with guns and that's a problem. He has done some good things. I mean, he's inched things along here and there and that's good. But I do feel like I can't imagine if he's going to run again. I just like, no, I don't want that. You know, it would be really disappointing to me. I'm a single mom as of the beginning of COVID and I'm

you know, no offense, but this whole situation has completely fucked my life. You know what?

What happens when the executive mom has to go home because they send her kids home for a year and a half? And what happens to me? You know, what happens when both my parents died during COVID and I'm left with nothing? I'm like fighting for my life right over here, hoping that somebody does something to help out the people in America. Trump's not going to do it. Thank God I don't have to see him every day on the TV and hear his lies.

But my daughter is almost 17, you know, fighting for her rights, fighting for my rights. My kids can't go to college anytime soon. I can't afford that. They're in public school. Are they going to get killed next week? So those are the type of things all of us are worried about. But I don't see any significant change. So.

On one hand, Biden's getting a lot of credit on a lot of fronts. The job market is strong. He's done a really good job handling America's relationship with Ukraine. And yet people's lived experience still seems to pivot around inflation and feeling like things are just all around bad. Now, these are progressives. This is actually quite a progressive group that we had. We had two Democratic groups. And just by the

sheer nature of them. One was kind of more progressive than the other, but they still feel like very doom and gloom. And some of it is because of what they see Republicans doing. It's around reproductive rights, it's around gun violence. But this seems like a tough environment for Biden to run the second time, especially against

let's say like a Ron DeSantis who would have like a good optimistic story to tell about Florida. What do you think about that? I mean, Biden's still hovering kind of around 44% in his approval rating. Do you think he's going in strong and that these voters that

That when push comes to shove, they'll still vote for him anyway. So like, it's okay. Or do you think that people's feelings about the country bode poorly for him? Lots to unpack. So let me start. Yeah. So I think first and foremost, important for the listeners to know that in each of these focus groups, whatever doubts they started with, whatever doubts they enumerated,

in the Biden versus Trump or Biden versus DeSantis, everybody was for Biden. Yep. Right. So, and I think that's an interesting facet that's baked into the cake. You know, what I took away from watching almost two hours of this was that there's both a challenge, but a huge opportunity for the Biden White House. And that is, it has to more forcefully tell its story about what it's done to begin to change the,

the circumstances with which these voters are expressing pessimism about the present and potentially about the future. And that is to really give strong lift to the things that he did pass in Congress and how that will singularly impact their lives on health care, on prescription drug costs, on cutting inflation.

Building roads and bridges, the types of things that we know voters want to see. And I think there's a way to tell this story that helps some of the concerns and challenges that Biden does go into this election with. And that is, this is somebody who had the experience of

to be able to get this legislation done, right? So it's interesting that you heard it a couple of times on guns. You heard it once or twice on climate. He's got to go tell people the biggest investment in impacting...

Climate change in our world was passed by Joe Biden because he had the experience to be able to get it done in a very fractured system. Guns, the first time the United States did anything significant as it related to guns in 30 years happened because he was able to help get that done. Again, using that wisdom and experience.

I think he's clearly got to do that. I will say, having spent two years in the White House, trying to get people to understand the intricacies and the benefits of health care reform and knowing how hard that is, telling that story is going to be a job for the campaign to take a billion or so dollars in paid media.

and make sure that people understand it. It is going to be in a very small number of states. But the only real way I think to change that, and again, this isn't a Biden thing. This is a bifurcated media challenge thing. And he's going to have to do this with paid media. And I think the second thing is,

He's obviously and clearly going to have to make this election very, very much the choice that an incumbent wants to make an election. Right. If it's a referendum, just like in 2022, a referendum is not a good thing. Right. As Biden used to tell Obama, as you've heard Biden say now, don't compare me to the almighty. Compare me to the alternative. That comparison to the alternative is the match that he wants to get into.

Okay, totally agree that the contrast play is good. The contrast play is especially good if it's Trump. I have been...

more worried for him if it's basically anybody other than Trump. You're right, though. I'll say you're right about what's baked in and the head-to-heads. I mean, the swing voting group and both the Democratic groups, there was no question about it. It is so funny to see almost everybody say Biden shouldn't run again and also have almost everybody say they would vote for him. Everybody. Yeah, everybody's like, oh, yeah. Everybody. Yeah. No, because, but this is why, let me ask you a question. I mean, why do you think that

Let's assume a few of these candidates run. Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pompeo. What if that candidate group gives that group somehow an inherently different advantage than, say, a Donald Trump? And let me give you my theory of this is.

I think for all the challenges that Democrats have, and we've heard them in these focus groups, I think the image of the Republican Party right now, and we see this in polling, is quite frankly more challenged than the Democratic brand. And so, yeah, Ron DeSantis will be new.

Nikki Haley, to some degree, will be new. But walk me through how they go through a primary and beat Trump and don't come out sort of feeling like an updated Trump.

Well, I think it depends. So first of all, I mean, there's a few dynamics I would massage into that. One would be that I'm not sure that Nikki Haley gets through a Republican primary, although we are starting to see hints of how she's going to run. And one of the things I've talked about a lot, both on this podcast and just in general, is completely agree with you, state of the Republican Party, and especially what its base voters want, right? One of the things I talk about a lot is the gap between what base voters want and what swing voters will tolerate. I think that swing voters would love a Nikki Haley.

I just don't think a Nikki Haley can get through a Republican primary because what Republican primary voters want is somebody who's going to own the libs, make them cry, be a culture warrior and a fighter, fighter, fighter. And we're going to talk more about fighters because I think we're seeing more and more, I think on both sides sort of wanting this fighting posture. But to me,

Most of us know Ron DeSantis as this woke warrior governor of Florida. But before that, he was like a semi-normie congressman who liked Paul Ryan. And this is actually how Trump's planning to attack him. Trump is planning to attack Ron DeSantis as a normie establishment guy and that you can't trust him. And I do think that Ron DeSantis has a plan to kind of try to run to the right of Trump and chip away at his base and...

than find a way to reposition himself as somebody that swing voters can get behind. And I think that's more true to who he is, actually, and that he would be capable of doing it. And if you want to run through all of them, I actually think Pence and Pompeo, I don't know. I haven't seen that much of a Pompeo, but also there's literally no constituency for Pence. Mike Pence will not be the candidate.

Mike Pence will not make it out of a Republican primary. I don't know what he's thinking. Like if he goes to a Trump event, he would need security to protect his life. Like if he thinks this party is going to elect him, he's insane. So forget that part. The contrast of a 46-year-old governor who just won by 20 points, who's telling a story about Florida and how he kept things open and how they have this gangbusters economy and everyone's moving there. And I'm not sure he's this good of a politician. I just think that contrast is so hard for politicians.

just the energy difference. Yeah, it certainly could be. But again, I think we're playing out

Biden, you know, all the challenges that he has and not sort of attributing that this process that DeSantis is about to go through is going to hang different challenges on him, much like ornaments on a tree. Right. And you mentioned it. It's impossible to get through this process. He's going to have to out Trump Trump. Right. That's exactly where Trump wants to get people. Right. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz all tried to out Trump Trump.

We figured out Trump plays Trump better than anybody else. So I think it will be interesting to watch what DeSantis does and how that starts to color him in with those swing voters. And what does he have to say? And are the things that he's talking about or capable of talking about

going to be the things that they most care about on the economy, on inflation. And I think that's what's going to be interesting because I think right now, and nothing aggravates me more than seeing a national poll 600 some days before a presidential election. But, you know, I think we're taking somebody who's got name recognition, but not a lot of the sort of challenges that going through a campaign are going to put on that person and

and somebody who's been in the public eye for decades. I would just caution anybody to make sure to understand that the world's going to be different next week. It's going to be vastly different in 2024.

I love that you're pushing back on this because I actually don't hear too many people doing it. I think a lot of people kind of be like, it's going to be hard with Biden being that old against somebody who's younger. But I think you're making a great point. I kind of turn this over in my head a lot. The one thing that gives me pause, and I'm just going to play it for you right now, is listening to voter after voter just be like, this guy's too old to run for president. Let's listen. We need somebody a good 30, 35 years younger.

He needs to, or she, whoever, male or female, I don't care, needs to appeal to the demographic that has really now propelled the Democratic Party to the success of the midterms that we enjoyed. We need to court the demographic that's represented quite a bit in this group right here in front of me. That's really my feeling. But he was the only guy that could save the Titanic from sinking.

And I'm forever grateful where he's at and what he's done. But God love you. Enjoy your dog in Delaware. Enjoy your wife in your life. And thank you. But it's time to say aloha or goodbye, I guess, not aloha.

It's just electability, right? Like, so an age is the reason he's already the oldest president at another four years and right or wrong, whether you agree or disagree with him being senile, like the perception is out there and the other side will attack that. And like his gas, whatever, they don't bother me because like, look at the last president. I feel like the other side has no room to say anything there. However, it's definitely more of his age and the fact that I don't think that he'll be electable.

For the last 30 years, I did assisted living across six states. And I'm retired now. And I've worked with some amazing, amazing individuals. You know, there's people that I've worked with that have been in their hundred and they've done awesome. I don't necessarily see age as a negative, but I think the rest of the world does. I see it as his electability.

If he were to run, I would support him. I just think it's going to be a rough hill to climb, even with all the accomplishments that he's had. So this is just what I hear all the time. That number is not going down, right? It's a, it's an immutable truth and it's just going to keep going up. Right. Much of the perception around his age is like performance based. It's what they see. And so to your pushback, which I think is totally fair, um,

How will they run a campaign? Because last time he got to campaign from his basement. He's got to be out there this time. He has to be giving speeches. Right now, the way that they handle him at the White House is like a very staged performances, but it's not a campaign. You run a campaign. It's like the most brutal thing in the world. So just tell me how it works. How do you strategize through that? Great question. The one thing I'd start with is, and I said this at the beginning of our tenure in the

the worst day on a campaign is not nearly as bad as a really bad day in the White House, right? So the psychic energy and the mental energy and the physical energy of a White House is not something that we can completely discount. I would say a few things. I think he's going to, and this is fairly obvious, but let me give it some texture. He's going to have to prove every single day that he's up to the job, that he's capable of doing

being president of the United States. And I think when he's at his best, let's take this recent trip to Ukraine. I think that gives people confidence

the view and the understanding that this is a job that he's very good at and very capable at, right? And not to get too inside baseball, but I thought to myself, man, I cannot imagine having flown into Iraq and Afghanistan a few times with President Obama. I cannot imagine the planning and whatnot that went through getting him on a 10-hour train ride to go through a war zone with no American troops, right?

So I think when he pops up in a place like Ukraine, when he gives that forceful speech in Poland,

And one of the things I'd put over on the side is I think it's pretty clear that Russia and now China, and they're looking like they're going to help Russia more, is going to make experience in foreign policy a big part, I think, of this campaign. Again, I think that goes to the experience and wisdom part that he's got to put in front of people. But I think every day he's going to have to show people that he's capable of doing this and doing it effectively.

Right. This isn't going to be like a one shot thing. You're not going to say like, hey, let's go jog for a day. And people will be like, oh, OK, he's there.

They're going to have to be comfortable with his ability to both do the job now and to some degree in four years of the future. Right. So I think that's going to be extraordinarily important. And when the job looks too big for any president, that's when things get really sideways, particularly about how people view them and their ability to do it. Right.

We saw this when I was in the White House. Whenever things felt a little out of control from the economy or whatnot, we could see our approval ratings start to tick down, even in a very polarized world. I think if you look back, the moment that Biden struggled the most with in the first two years was that sort of

late July, early August, the uptick in the Delta variant, and then the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the job looked too big, right? That idea of competence was really challenged. And so I think they're going to have to make sure, whether it's in a campaign, whether it's in the White House, that every single day they're showing him in a way that makes people feel

good about his ability to do the job. And I think the State of the Union is a great example. He jousted with the Republicans. You saw this in the focus group. He basically baited them into this Medicare Social Security fight. I think that's great. And I think, you know, to your point, as we were talking about Ron DeSantis and the others,

He's going to have to use, and you see this again, State of the Union, drawing that contrast first with House Republicans. We're not going to have a Republican nominee for another 12 months. So he's got to set up the contrast with House Republicans, use that foil, take that negative image they have, and really, really seize on that contrast, contrast, contrast to begin to, I think, make himself visible.

into a stronger candidate, particularly vis-a-vis them. Look, there's no doubt that people want, particularly Democrats, I saw this a lot too in the White House, they want change faster, right? And I think that's part of going to tell that story. That's the fighter I think we're going to get to in a bit. Yeah, well, let's do that. I want to play some sound. Again, this is like from the slightly more progressive group where they were like unhappy about the way the Democratic Party is just handling itself because they feel like they're bringing a knife to a gunfight. Let's listen.

We're seriously up against fascism, like a fascist creep. The Republicans are like, they're going by like the dictator, like in Hungary, like they're going by his playbook and like they're going after trans kids. And I was just so angry and feeling like this is like getting dystopian.

I mean, Roe versus Wade was, that felt very personal, even though it doesn't affect me here. And then a friend of mine from California, he has a lot of Republican relatives that I remember he's like always fighting with on social media, like defending Democrats because, you know, he's progressive, but he's like,

fighting against his Republican relatives. And then he reminded me, he was like pointing out these good things that Biden did, but now I don't remember any of them, honestly. It was that spending bill or whatever. It was like, they did a Trojan horse where they put in, you know, environmental stuff in this bill that they called it like American Rescue Act. But, um,

I just feel like they're working within the old paradigm of, like, "You youngsters, you gotta take it slow. You gotta inch forward." Like, it also really, really troubling, like, disturbing when I see them, like, bite back against, like, the progressive, quote, "squad," when they, like, bite back more against them than the actual Republicans. I know he's done some good things, but it's, like, stuff that's in the background and kind of boring.

I don't see any alternatives for Biden really stepping out and possibly running for president. I think they're all kind of sitting on their hands with that. I don't think Biden should run again.

But I don't see anyone really coming out and supporting some Democratic candidates. I think the squad is I love them, but I think they're losing power. And I think they're conforming more towards their Democratic peers, because I think they realize that if they don't have some sort of union, that the Republicans are just going to get worse and walk all over them.

I love the idea of the Democrats taking the high road. I kind of think we need to like get down in the mud with them and start slinging because I feel that desperate about the direction of our country. And I think many other people do too. And I think if we just kind of go at the pace that we're going, we're just going to keep losing ground.

Okay. So, you know, Republicans are very clear when I do their groups that they want a fighter. That's like the number one thing. Someone who's going to punch back because, you know, they believe Democrats are an existential threat to their way of life.

But like I heard a lot of that in these Democratic groups, too. And it's not the first time where they see the Republican Party also as an existential threat and they want someone who can really take them on. Now, I think Biden's pitch, right, was that he was going to bring things back to normal against Trump and that that worked. But do you think that they want something more now? And who do you think the fighters are? Well, first of all, I was struck by.

the sort of explanation of the enormity of what the country faces. I mean, look, the power of a focus group is you hear the personal story, right? You're struck by the depth in which people feel like

and worry about basic rights and basic norms disappearing. And we hear this every election, right? This is the most important election of our lifetime. I do think that the reason we're hearing that more or it feels truer more recently is because of

What each side feels like are, as you said, really existential crises, right? And look, credit to the White House back in the fall of 2022 when I felt a little bit of angst around it. I think others felt a little bit of angst around it. Inflation is high. It's really taking up a lot of space.

And they're still giving a speech in Philadelphia about democracy. And I think some of us are kind of scratching our heads. But I think that was an important set of messages and an important set of moments to let people know, yes, there's inflation. We've got to figure out how to make big progress on that. But we can't forget the basic set of rights and norms that we feel are challenged. Again, this is where I think the Republican Party going through this election is

They're going to have to grapple with the fact that their standard bearer and their president has talked about how this whole thing was stolen from him. And election denier after election denier lost in 2022 because of that position, not because of the vulnerability around inflation. Now, that's not to suggest that inflation, and you heard it in the focus groups, isn't real, right? And I think the administration has to understand that

even if the economic statistics look better, it's about how people feel in their daily lives. It's not about where the CPI is relative to the last six months. People have to live where they live. So again, to me, I think you've got to position Biden as the protector. And as I said earlier, you've really got to force this choice, right? You've got to say and suggest that

that what Biden is trying to protect and what Biden is trying to do has to end up being greater than the value set that Republicans are trying to protect and what Republicans are trying to do. We did this, I think, pretty effectively.

In 2012, on the reelection campaign, we were pretty clear pretty early it was going to be Mitt Romney. So we forced this just push against making what we wanted people to understand about Mitt Romney in a forceful way. I don't know that this White House is going to have

that clear of an indication as early as we did in 2012 about who their nominee is going to be. But you can use writ large, I think, the kind of quilt of what the Republican Party is and is pushing for now to begin to really force that contrast.

And again, I think this is where getting into a campaign of Biden versus something else will benefit Biden because they'll see in a way that's different than trying to pass legislation. They'll see a contrast and they'll see a fight. And that fight, I think, is really important for people to see. I think that's right. And actually, I'm going to have these voters back up the perspective you just shared by listening to how they talk about Ron DeSantis.

He's smarter than Trump, is my impression. Like, he just goes with whatever he thinks will make him popular. I think DeSantis actually believes in, you know, the stuff that he tries to push for. And that is more dangerous. And he knows what he's doing compared to Trump. Yeah.

I think DeSantis is worse because he has a more respectable veneer. I don't know. He's obviously convinced like Florida people. I mean, I don't get it how anyone could get on board. I mean, if we're saying like worse for society, I think like both obviously, but it's just so horrible to think about like kids getting like persecuted and

Teresa and Andy have me maybe reconsidering DeSantis being younger, having a little bit more energy. It's definitely scary. Maybe Trump having the experience in the office and maybe understanding how to manipulate things in his favor a little bit better. That is something that I think about. But DeSantis shipping people around, not being on board with trans kids, that's super scary too.

I'm not sure that the trans stuff is a big winner for the Democrats, but I will say to your point that listening to Democratic voters talk about Ron DeSantis is they do not see a difference between him and Trump. They do not think that he is less dangerous. In fact, they often think he is more dangerous because they think he's smarter. They think he could be more effective. You know, Nate Cohn had this piece in the New York Times this week that I think is kind of interesting about how like guests were so far away from the actual election and yet they

the early polling is often indicative of where we end up in part because there's a bunch of things going on where people are already making up their minds. DeSantis has really high name recognition among Republicans, but as a result, he's also got really high name recognition among Democrats and they really, really hate him. And so you think that Joe Biden against DeSantis, you think that's like as good as him running against Trump? Like how do you, where do you put it?

Yeah, look, I think anybody would want to run against Trump. I think Joe Biden would want to run against Trump. Absolutely. And I think if you had to pick a candidate, that's who you'd pick 100 times out of 100. But I do think the point you just made, I think, is really important for listeners to understand. It's different than if you look at like in 2000,

George W. Bush was able to come onto the scene and lay out his own kind of platform and image as a compassionate conservative. So he actually got to play off of House Republicans and draw his own image. Obama came onto the scene very unknown except for one big speech in 2004 saying,

but they were allowed to sort of unwind a bit of how they wanted people to think of them before the negatives truly caught up with them. I think DeSantis made a decision and probably a strategically correct one that in order to be the nominee in 2024, I've got to create an image within the Republican Party that allows me to take advantage of Trump fatigue. That's why he's

It's sort of Ron DeSantis and then a lot of people way, way, way behind him in terms of who's the alternative to Donald Trump, right? But I think it's important to...

even as a Democrat, I think Ron DeSantis has, and again, I don't agree with him on a lot of issues, obviously, but he's a smart tactical politician in how he's created an image to get where he is in the hierarchy of that Republican primary. And Democrats shouldn't take any of that for granted. I'm not

I'm not suggesting that a campaign that you'd run against Trump is the same degree of difficulty in terms of what you would run against DeSantis. Look, if DeSantis were the nominee, it's a remarkably challenging campaign. There's no doubt about that. And what DeSantis wants to run is what every challenger wants to run, right? They want to run a change campaign and make it a referendum against the incumbent, right? Right.

Whereas again, I think Biden is going to want to make this a choice. Let's compare who's best ready to face the challenges that the country is going to face, deal with those challenges, who has the experience, who has the foreign policy wherewithal.

who has the wisdom and the ability to get things done versus somebody who's untested at a bigger stage. That's, I think, the contrast you'd see in a Biden-DeSantis race. Yeah. So I think that's right. And I'll tell you,

listening to the focus groups, and just thinking about things analytically over time, I have sort of arrived at the conclusion after being for a while there, man, Biden should really step down. He should let people have somebody new. But I've sort of come around to this idea that giving up the benefits of the incumbency, listening to people head to head, they will all take

Biden, not just against Trump, but against DeSantis. But then I hit this wall in the analysis and the wall is Kamala Harris and the swing group last week, very pro Joe Biden. They were amped about the State of the Union. And you said head to head Trump, all Biden, head to head DeSantis, all Biden. And you said Kamala Harris versus Trump.

And everybody stopped and like thought about it for a long time. And now they were unsparing, the swing voter group about Kamala Harris and most swing voting groups are. But this is like the Democratic base where I would say they weren't that much better, except when we asked if they were interested in seeing someone else on the ticket. That was still a no go. Let's listen.

If she were to be removed from the ticket, I think like more of the pushback would be less about like the lack of impact she has and more so, you know, this is our first woman vice president, woman of color in office to change that. I guess it would depend on who she was replaced with. But if it was like a white man, for example, there might be like a lot of pushback from like a social aspect.

I don't know enough about her. Like people say she hasn't done anything, but I also don't ever hear her name or so I really don't know what she's doing. And I don't know if the vice president really matters all that much, but changing it up just seems like, Oh, then it just be another thing. Oh, he made a mistake and they can just attack him for that, which none of those find anything, but you know, just another thing. I mean, just don't rock the boat, man. At one in 2020, don't, don't mess things up for 2024. Yeah.

I think it would be a bad move. First of all, we have a woman who is a minority, who is quite brilliant, who's an advocate for women and minorities, and for him to

take her off the ballot. I don't think it's her, it's him. He's the problem. Going against Ron DeSantis, he will be killed, I think. People will look at him and say, oh my God, this old man or this young man who's taken over Florida, you know? So let's stipulate. Head to head, I see a real path for Joe Biden. But Ron DeSantis-

is not going to run against Joe Biden. He's going to run against Kamala Harris. He'll run a little bit about Joe Biden, but he'll be like, this guy is too old. He's senile. Everybody else is pulling the strings. And you know who we really are going to have to deal with? Kamala Harris. And you know what? That is not something you have to explain to voters. Their heads are already there. That the chances of Joe Biden getting sick in office or even dying in office are like a real possibility in your 80s. And

she would be the natural successor and they're not that hot on her. And yet he can't actually change her on the ticket. So it seems like the only path, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, is that they have to start now basically rehabbing her image as vice president. And they've got to get her out there. They've got to build her up. How do you do that? Let's start with, I agree with the focus group and it was interesting to see how

hardened they were about not changing. It is, to me, hard to imagine a scenario in which that would happen. So I just think it's important to touch on that. And I agree with you that I think it's really going to be incumbent upon the administration to do all that it can to put the vice president into a better position and to bolster, as you said, the vice president, bolster Kamala Harris. I will say this. Let's take the most recent example.

I was struck that her remarks in Munich at the security conference that got a lot of play on Saturday, and I know a lot of people probably aren't focused terribly on the news on a Saturday, and then Biden pops up in Ukraine and then Poland, and it probably drowned some of that out. But I think the White House is thinking about this because you could tell her remarks weren't just the, you know, we need to stick together in Ukraine. Her pointed remarks were,

talking about Russia as having committed crimes against humanity and holding Russia and its leadership responsible for those crimes against humanity, gave her a platform at that conference that was bigger than a normal sort of vice presidential speech probably would have been a few months ago. And I think they're going to have to look for moments like that

to elevate her and maybe even give her lines and remarks and announcements that they would normally have given to a president. When I heard those remarks and read those stories, I thought it was interesting in the sense that

That, to me, might have been one of the lines Biden used in his speech in Poland. They clearly gave it to her in a way that helped, I think, make her a bigger part of this. They're going to have to look for more opportunities like this and on issues that are important. I think that's why you see, you know, they travel some together at ribbon cuttings around new chips plants and infrastructure projects. I think those are the kind of things that

that they're going to have to put her equally in the forefront on to make sure that people feel better ultimately about her ability in the event that something should happen.

Let me ask you like kind of a behind the scenes question on this, because I guess my impression has been, it's been sort of weird how invisible Kamala Harris has been in the first couple of years. It's something that comes up in the focus groups all the time, especially from Democrats. It's not that they don't like her. They just sort of thought she had a lot of potential and now they don't see her. And, you know, she's had a lot of negative news stories, staff turnovers, all this. And it's what seemed maybe like Biden was sort of

distancing themselves from her. And now like, they've got to be a team again. Like there's nowhere else to go. Right. It's like, Biden's going to do this. And Kamala is the person, like they just got to do this again together. Like what a conversation has to happen. Do you look at each other and just say, you know what, it's you and me. And that's just what it's going to be. And this is for both of us. And we've got to put on a smile and go do it. Like, are they overcoming a negative relationship or what do you think? I don't know that there's a negative relationship. I think there's always a challenge, uh,

in the White House of the challenge of what I just talked about, of giving those bigger announcements or some of those lines to the vice president. You know, you've got a presidential staff that wants to bolster the image of their guy, right? So I think it's a little bit of what you just talked about. Like there's two people in the boat. There aren't any tickets off the boat and there's only one way to get to the other side and that's paddling together.

And I think they do a understand that too. I think they have to make sure that because of the challenges and because of age that people are going to focus on a vice president, maybe unlike you have it normally that they've got to have to bolster that image and give her a role. That's probably bigger than you would normally want to, not because of who she is, but because again, you're, you're trying to bolster the main guy.

So I think they're going to have to be very cooperative, very transparent and understand, as I do believe they do, that this is a ticket, not one pulling another.

Okay. So last question. And it's really about the Democratic bench. I think you and I had – I can't remember if we had this argument on hacks or we talked about – We did. Okay. You remember. Oh, you remember our argument. Oh, I remember. Okay, great. I'm kidding. But I do remember. I'm glad I left an impression. So I would say –

When I was on Hex, it was definitely before the midterms. Yeah, it definitely was. One of the things that was interesting about the midterms, it changed my perspective on a few things. I thought Donald Trump had a much bigger hold and I was not sure Ron DeSantis was going to run. And I think that that knockdown of Trump and all the people he nominated and Ron DeSantis' win really shifted the dynamic of DeSantis had no choice but get in. He hasn't announced, but he's already running, basically. No doubt. But the other thing that it did was it created...

Like a really impressive bench. I mean, I think that, you know, Shapiro winning by just like clobbering Mastriano in Pennsylvania in that swing state. Whitmer winning by like, I can't remember how much she won by, but it was a big win. You know, it was like a double digit win. And there was a number of candidates that I would push back for.

against your Stacey Abrams idea. I think losing twice is not fair, but Warnock, you know, Warnock, I thought came out looking really good. So I think that the Democrats are in this interesting place where like, they sort of don't have a 24, uh,

person who could be an alternative to Biden where everyone's looking at them saying like, well, just so-and-so could run. And everyone would be like, yeah, so-and-so would be great. However, in 28, there's a bunch of those options, but it's like Shapiro needs time to actually govern his governor, Whitmer. She's in her second term, but feels like she has to

do more governing. But tell me where you think the state of the bench is going forward in terms of what does the future look like with these candidates now, who I think many of whom are well positioned to be major 28 contenders? Yeah. And I was joking that I remember this because I honestly do remember it because I do think that the bench has always been a bit discounted in the Democratic Party.

But I think if you look at just the ones that you mentioned that won in 22, Whitmer, Shapiro, you mentioned Raphael Warnock, who's won now, what, four races in Georgia? He has to run a lot of specials, this guy. A lot of runoffs. And I'd throw in a name, I'd throw in, you know, like a Jared Polis in Colorado. Why I think the Democrats are uniquely well positioned for the future is

Whitmer, Shapiro, Polis, Warnock. Let's just take those four names, right? Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Georgia. Yeah. Swing states. Yeah. Our guys and our gals win in swing states. And Nikki Haley won a Republican primary that she had to win to be the nominee in South Carolina when she was governor. But she's not run a tough general election in South Carolina, right? Right.

Mike Pompeo is not in a swing congressional district. Mike Pence is from Indiana. Glenn Youngkin in a place like Virginia is a little bit different because Virginia is a swing state. But I think we're particularly positioned because one, we have good leaders and two, they're in places that Democrats have to be both the nominee and capable of winning in a general election. You mentioned governing and I think what's interesting and why I think

the case of a Gretchen Whitmer in the future is so powerful. They've got the legislature for the first time in the history of the state. So she can be governor without having to just play defense, right? She's the governor and is now able to really get some of her stuff done, passing big tax cuts for working families. Those are the types of things that help bolster that resume going forward.

I think there's a lot to be excited about in the Democratic Party. And that's not to mention there's obviously others, right? I think Junior Raimondo is a remarkably talented public official and public servant. And Pete Buttigieg also has got a bright future depending on what he wants to do and when. So I'm pretty optimistic about the bench in a way that

that I think Democrats have been overly worried about. And the last thing I would say is,

Each of those candidates that we've just talked about are unique and interesting. And we're always sort of looking backwards. Oh, we need our ex. Oh, who's this year's Barack Obama? Who's this year's Bill Clinton? Who's this year's John Kennedy? That's not really how it works. We've got very talented campaigners, very, very talented public officials. To me, the future of the Democratic Party is remarkably bright.

Just to underscore this, I'm just going to play a little bit of sound and I'm going to set it up by saying there was this real asymmetric response that you would get from Republican groups versus Democratic groups. Because if you'd ask Republican groups like, hey, if Trump doesn't run, who do you want to see run? They'd have a bunch of names that they would throw out. But if you ask the Democrats, who do you want to see run if it's not Biden? Because they would say they didn't want Biden to run. They didn't have names. That has started to change. That's changed. Listen to these voters now.

I think Gretchen Whitmer from Michigan, I think she'd be great.

I really liked Cory Booker in 2020, and I don't know why people didn't like him or Elizabeth Warren. I would have voted for her a million times over. I really liked her. But then again, after what happened in 2016, where they couldn't get people to vote for a woman, I'm also like, electability, which sucks. Because I mean, if I were choosing a candidate, if I could pick the president myself, I would choose Elizabeth Warren. But I don't know, just worry about her electability after 2016. Yeah.

Katie Porter. I like Gretchen Widmer from Michigan. I would be on board with Stacey Abrams, but I don't think that's going to happen.

I love Stacey. I love her, but she's not been able to get past governor here. So I worry too much about that. I mean, especially now considering we're a blue state. She's run for governor two times now and she hasn't won within a reasonable margin, you know, so that's the scary thing, but she's more than qualified.

Right.

But they don't think he's electable. They think that Ron DeSantis is more electable. And these groups, in ways that is, I think, different from where they've been, are now... They're turning over a bunch of new people in their heads that they see emerging in the party, and they're thinking about electability. And they're saying, who of these people can win? But I would say what's interesting that I hear in these groups, they sort of like the more progressive candidates, right? They say Katie Porter. They say...

you know, Stacey Abrams, although Stacey Abrams isn't particularly progressive, actually, but like Elizabeth Warren is really more progressive. But then they kind of walk themselves back and think like, who could get elected? Who do you think in the future of the party? I mean, it sounds like you kind of just answered this. It's these swing state governors. Do you see the party moving towards an electability model after Biden that maybe compromises some of the progressive side of what they may want more in their hearts?

Well, I do think Democratic primary voters go through a couple of different gating decisions, if you will. We want to fall in love with a candidate, right? We want to be inspired. We want to go into a full swoon. And then we have to go through this idea of, okay, now that I've fallen in love with this person, can they actually get elected?

While I've mentioned a bunch of swing state candidates that I think would be remarkably powerful, that doesn't mean that's the only list for me. The reason I say that, and like you, I was struck by...

A lot of the challenges that they give Biden are not that they think he can't overcome that challenge. They're worried that he can't overcome the perception of that challenge, which is fascinating. Totally. They mentioned Katie Porter. She's actually in a swing district in the California congressional district. Look, if she gets elected to the Senate in California, it's a big if because there's going to be a wild primary. And quite frankly, she's going to have to win two elections.

She's very much going to shoot into that top tier group of people. Look, I would say this. I go back to my experience with Obama and we had a challenge initially with black voters with Barack Obama. And your listeners are probably saying, well, why? Well,

Black voters in focus groups, and we saw this in polling, they love Barack Obama. They love what he stood for. They supported him. They did not believe that the country would elect Barack Obama because of his skin color.

And when did that begin to change? When a very, very white state of Iowa supported him in the caucus. That boosted him going into a place like South Carolina with a big black vote in a primary. So to me, campaigns are interesting because we think a lot about them and then we run them. And often what we think about them when we go into them is different than when we run them.

And that's why it's sort of like that adage of it's why they play the game, right? You can think you know who's going to win the game, but it's the strategy and the things you do within that game. I think a candidate that can prove they can win in a tough place can overcome the concerns about electability. I think you heard somebody in that group say, oh, I'm worried they're not going to elect a woman because look what happened in 2016. I think if a...

hypothetically, if a Gretchen Whitmer or a Katie Porter were running for higher office, a Gina Raimondo, a Kamala Harris, and they won a series of big primaries, I think that would help prove to the Democratic electorate that had perception concerns, okay, maybe they can win. In many ways, seeing them do that is what helps to wear away that perception concern that it won't happen.

I love that. Even with Nate Cohns telling us that where things are now might be really indicative to where they are later. You got to play the game because you never know what's going to happen. Robert Gibbs, thank you for coming and talking this all through with me while you had COVID and I had COVID. This was great. And I hope you'll come back again next season. Love to do it.

And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of The Focus Group. Go tell all your friends that they should be listening too. And give us a rating on Apple or iTunes or wherever else you listen to the show. We will catch you next week.